


Thrakean Terror

by Madoking



Series: Tradition be Damned [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Brasidas and Kassandra's kids gallivant through thrake, F/M, General Audiences - Freeform, Sequel, Tradition be damned, causing mischief, siblings sweetness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23426647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madoking/pseuds/Madoking
Summary: Sequel one-shot to Tradition Be Damned.Kassandra and Brasidas have four children. The three boys, Alexander, Archelaos, and Theodoros, join with their nervous uncle to assert their unfounded will over the one girl, Penelope, otherwise known as the Thrakean Terror.When Penelope sneaks away with a boy, the brothers unwittingly cause a chain of events that may see them caught in Sparta's web.
Series: Tradition be Damned [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648975
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Thrakean Terror

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> This one is set twenty or so years after the end of Tradition Be Damned. It's a lot of sibling antics, nothing too serious.

Archelaos was many things. He was tall, that was a given. He had brown hair, his mother’s, and a sharp nose, his father’s. His eyes were a bright, honeyed brown and his hair had been cut short to his scalp, haphazardly pointing in every direction other than the one he wanted it to. 

But he was also seventeen, and known in this part of the world for his pranks and fool-hardy disregard for others. His younger sister said that the most, warning her friends away from him. Her brother, only a year her senior, was liquid fire that would burn them, she’d told her swooning friends. He didn’t need a spark to make their hearts melt. 

Penelope wasn’t a fool. She saw how easily he held the small chora where they grew up in the palm of his hand. It was piecemeal, for him, to smile and nod and scheme and manipulate the rough townspeople to his will. Nothing malicious. Nothing that would cause the rakes and hoes to be risen against him. 

But Penelope knew that one day he’d take it too far. He’d offend the wrong man. He’d crack the wrong egg into the wrong bowl and it would be his undoing. 

“You worry too much,” he said, leaning against a lemon tree in their farm’s orchard. She wasn’t watching him, instead engrossed in the slow ripening process of the fruit. There was no point taking these to market because everyone here grew them, but she’d basket them anyway and put them by the front gate for vagrants to take. It was charitable: something she wished her brother saw for its merits. 

“I don’t worry enough,” she replied, sniffing a lemon. “And Khloe is really sweet, Archy. And I know you aren’t serious about her.”

Archelaos furrowed his brows in mock outrage. Then she saw the small glint enter his eye and rolled her eyes preemptively. 

“Which one’s Khloe again?”

She set her jaw and threw a lemon at him, arm strong and true. It got him in the eye, the skin no doubt causing it to water. She didn’t stay to look, but instead picked up her basket and ran towards the house, knowing he’d be in pursuit. 

She rounded the low wall that protected their mother’s herbs from the frost and bounded over the woodpile, grown small by the encroaching Spring, before allowing herself to think herself safe within the compound of their home. 

But then his hand circled her wrist tightly and she yelped before he dumped a bucket of frigid water over her head, soaking her from head to toe. 

“Archelaos!” she screamed, his crime so much more heinous than hers. It was just a _lemon_ for fuck’s sake. Not an entire damned bucket of water!

“That’s what you get,” he said with laughter ringing through him. 

But then he paused, listening to the silence for the first time. 

_Oh no,_ he thought, making to run. 

Penelope could only smile, his doom and her reckoning, because Xander and uncle were home and would come to her aid as if she were a five year old girl being attacked by a bear. 

“Archy-parchy!” Xander yelled, leaping behind his brother and punching him lightly on the shoulder. Archelaos didn’t smile. 

“Picking on poor Penny, are we!” Xander sang, throwing a tomato up and down, up and down, catching it in his hand. As each movement passed, the stench of the rotten vegetable permeated the yard and revealed Xander’s plot.

Because Archelaos may be the chora’s prankster, but that was only because Xander was away most of the time, now. 

The tomato squelched onto Archelaos’ head, beads of brown rot tumbling down his hair and onto his face. It stank, it was ugly, and it pierced through Archelaos’ strong outer armour, revealing a rare loss of temper. 

He punched his brother, aiming for his jaw but causing only a glance as Xander anticipated it and shot away from him. Penny backed away, not wanting to be caught in the crosshairs of the tussle. It was no secret who would win: Xander was twenty-one, large, with long golden hair and dark brown eyes, and he was being actively trained and honed and sharpened by their uncle. 

Xander was built for combat, Archelaos was built for secrets. 

But, still, Archelaos landed blows that Xander wasn’t quick enough to deflect, the holes in his guard likey borne of arrogance and surety that he would beat his brother. 

“Penny, why are you wet?”

Penelope turned to her uncle, grizzly with days worth of growth along his chin, and smiled. Pointing her chin to her brother’s scuffle, she confirmed that she was the cause. 

“And people call Archelaos a terror,” Alexios muttered under his breath. “You, my dear, fly so low and quietly that no one can even see you.”

“That’s not quite fair,” she replied, cocking her eyebrow. “I didn’t throw the tomato, or a punch.”

Alexios laughed, watching the boys trade their blows. “No, but I’m sure you threw something.”

He gestured to her to follow him and she did, leaving the dust of the courtyard. 

“I have a gift for your mother, and I wanted to see your opinion of it, too.”

Penelope followed him out to the wooden cart sitting near the road. It was the wagon that they took to the polis to sell her mother’s weavings and her father’s carvings. Alexios reached in, shuffling his hands around a chest until they lay on a reddened piece of what looked like rock. But as he pulled it out, she saw that the sun shone through it, and there were various insects and bits of matter stuck inside it. 

“What is it?” she said, taking it from him. It was heavier than she thought it would be, and it fit comfortably in the palm of her hand. 

“The merchant said that it was formed from the second half of the pomegranate that caused Persephone to be tied to the underworld.”

She cocked her eyebrow at him again, a small grin pushing unwillingly across her face. 

“But I think it’s just pretty,” he finished, gliding his finger across the edge. 

“She’ll love it,” she said, passing it back to him. “Where have you and Xander been?”

“Makedonia,” he replied comfortably. “Lots of work down there.”

“I wish I could go with you,” she whispered. “I wish mater would let me.”

Alexios looked at her, still soaking in the sunlight. He knew why Kassandra refused to allow Archelaos and Penelope to venture south. Even Theo, the fourteen year old, would be allowed when he was older. 

Because Penelope looked too much like her mother, and Archelaos looked too much like him. They were a spitting image, if copies of people could be made. Xander was a gentle mix of Brasidas and Kassandra, uncanny to neither of them, so could come with Alexios south. 

Alexios replied in the only way he knew how. 

“I’m sorry, Penny, but it’s just not possible.”

She thinned her mouth, the smartest of them all by a mile. 

They both turned their heads towards the laughter erupting from the courtyard, watching as Archy and Xander walked under the brick arch with their arms over each other’s shoulders. Best friends, confidants, unbreakable. 

Alexios grinned at the scene, but Penny grimaced. It was more difficult to get her way while they were in each other’s good books. 

“We’re going trapping, if you want to come, Pen?” Xander said. “And do you know where Theo is?”

She shook her head. “No thanks. I have a thing to go to. But Theo is in the forest already.” 

“What kind of _thing_?” Alexios asked, his instincts piqued. 

“A lunch,” she replied dismissively. She didn’t want her uncle to tail her, that was for sure. 

“With who?” he ventured. 

“Friends.”

“Do I know their fathers?”

“Are you mine?” she said sharply, turning to him. 

“You know I represent him while he’s away,” he said, resignation filling his voice. He knew these tricks and he’d seen these kids perform them for years. She was lying, and was deftly attempting to sidestep him. He swished some saliva through his mouth, both waiting for further tells from her and allowing the pause to excuse his relent. 

“Okay, fine,” he finished. 

The boys had already gathered their materials and were disappearing into the trees. He could join them, but something held him back. When he turned back to Penelope, she was gone, into the house likely to change. 

And just like that, he was alone in the courtyard. 

\--------

She was quick and quiet. It was good to have Archelaos as a brother, in a few ways. One, he was so grossly negligent to the girls he encountered, breaking their hearts week to week, that everyone expected the rest of the siblings to follow suit. Xander had started the tradition, breaking at least three hearts before becoming broken himself. Archy had no such trouble: he’d only ever experienced passing fancy. Two, he was popular, being friends with almost everyone. And three, his natural state of being was for all eyes to be on him, forgetting her walking just behind him. 

So she used this to meet with boys under the noses of not only her parents, but her brothers’ as well. 

Simon. He was two years older than her, with porcelain skin and golden hair. His eyes were pale, like the sun shining on the sea, and his fingers were long and generous. She’d begun seeking him when they’d been left to figure out one of the traps together as the rest of the group left them behind. He’d made her laugh. He was the son of the Archon, but it had never mattered. Not to him, not to her. 

He was older than her. Not unbroachably older, but enough that she knew her brothers would balk. 

But he wasn’t thirty. He wasn’t demanding her hand from her father as was the custom here. Something her friends had begun to experience. One of them was married, recently, and her father had essentially sold her for a few pigs and some lambs. Penelope shuddered as she walked, remembering her father’s stalwart promise that her choice was her own, that he would never take it from her. Her mother had said the same, but the quality had been different. Kassandra had assured her daughter with the fierce certainty that came with knowledge. 

But Simon wasn’t thirty. And she liked him. Why she felt the need to keep him hidden was answered by how easily her brothers, two who loved each other dearly, had come to blows over a rotten tomato. 

The forest was growing thicker as she rounded the hillock that bordered the chora. There was a pond here with frogs and dragonflies that buzzed around her head, singing their song. She would wait here for him, as she did most days, and usually she didn’t have to wait long. She busied herself with her spindle, twisting it in her fingers and tightening the wool. Worsted. Strong. 

Then, she let her mind wander to her parents. They were in the north, in the closest thing their region had to a polis. They’d been gone all winter, living there until the snows cleared. She had no idea why they were there, other than their usual lie of _buying supplies_. She wasn’t a young girl anymore, swallowing the tales told. 

And she’d found the letter in the study, where her mother kept her loom. Her rage bubbled at the lies they’d been told and the fibs they’d been fed, and her mother and father travelling north was only one of them. 

A letter, undated, but signed with the hand of a Spartan Strategos. Nikolaos, the Wolf of Sparta. It had addressed her mother by name; it had mentioned her uncle; it had mentioned who she could only presume to be Alexander, still in their mother’s womb. 

The letter was sweet, sorrowful, pining for forgiveness. 

But the letter inside it was damning. From her mother’s uncle, the King of Sparta, calling for her return with the heir. 

Penelope had been lied to. Archelaos, and Alexander, and Theodoros had been lied to. They weren’t simple folk from a chora in Thrake. 

They were fucking Spartan royalty. And she felt like her parents had to answer for it. 

Whisper soft, the crunch of feet approached the pond and Penny dropped her spindle into the grass, letting her fury abate. 

“ _Kallos_ ,” he called, grinning as he walked into the glade. 

She refused to let anything cloud how glad she was to see him. Her feet moved almost without her permission, circling her eyes around her to watch for interlopers. Seeing none, she let herself be engulfed in his arms, feeling the sinew of his muscles through her grey woolen cloak. 

“Simon,” she whispered, pushing out her breath. They stood like that for a small amount of time: with her arms around his waist and his hands about her chestnut hair. 

“Did I hear that your uncle was home?” he ventured, pushing her away and sitting on a rock by the pond. 

“Yes, and Xander,” she replied quickly, not wanting to talk about her family. “Here, I brought you this.”

She produced a small rock from her pocket, a solid shell embedded in it. He smiled at her as he took it, then held it up to the sun for a better look. 

“I wonder how they get stuck?” he said, fingers tracing the edge of the stone. “Like the sand from the river gets pressed down around it.”

“Maybe,” she replied, sitting too and leaning back on her elbows. This was part of what she loved about their time together: something would pique his interest and he’d speculate and become emboldened by his ideas. It was a joy to see him think out loud, like the world could understand a single word he said. 

“Either a shell gets stuck, or the sand gets stuck. Which do you think, _Kallos_?”

She smiled again. “Perhaps the shell gets lost in the sand, unable to find a way out, and the sand takes advantage.”

He thinned his mouth, dropping the stone from the sunlight and peering at her through his blond hair. “You’re talking about Eudoxia.”

Penelope shrugged. “She’s already pregnant, you know? And her husband won’t let us see her.”

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t know. But she’s a wife now, not a girl. It’s the way of things.”

She felt her fury returning a little. Such injustice required an answer. 

“So you’ve already picked which child you’ll marry, then?” she asked, barb hitting right between his forehead and forcing his brow to crease. “So you’re eighteen, and when you’re thirty, you’ll be marrying a fourteen-year-old, because that’s the way of things, which means that you should be looking now for someone in the four to six year old age range. So go on, Simon, go and pick your wife.”

She stood up, no longer able to sit after her tirade. Then she stomped into the forest away from him, and away from the tradition that bound everyone but her. Her father would murder any man who touched her. Her uncle would ask for first blood, too. And she suspected that her mother would burn Thrake to the ground for the presumption. 

“Penny, wait,” he said, voice meandering through the forest towards her. She didn’t wait, but she did slow down a little. 

He clasped her fingers and pulled them tightly, forcing her to turn around and face him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, pushing her long hair behind her shoulder. “You’re right, it’s awful. But most girls marry at your age. The only place that doesn’t is Sparta, and they have-.”

“What did you say?” she interrupted him, her voice sharp and unyielding. 

“I don’t want you to think that you need to marry-.”

“No, about Sparta.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “They don’t marry until twenty there. And generally the men are the same age as the women.”

She couldn’t believe it. Another puzzle piece fell into place. Her parents were Spartan, this almost confirmed it. Why else would they engage in a custom of a place many miles away?

Simon noticed her change and brought a finger under her chin, lifting her face to his. “Why?” he asked, voice low. 

“I’ve not heard much about that city,” she said, the truth. “I was just curious.”

He nodded slowly, fingers branching along her neck in a way that made her nerves stand up on end. 

Then his lips grazed her jaw, the lightest touch. She was used to this hesitancy in him. It was one of the reasons she liked him in the first place. 

But she wasn’t a hesitant person. 

She reached around his neck and brought his face roughly to hers, tasting the salt on his lips and the herbs on his tongue. He felt emboldened too, as he always did with her. He knew that one day he would pay dearly for this involvement with her, both Alexander’s and Archelaos’ fists finding his, but it was in these moments that he knew he’d suffer her over-stuffed brothers just to taste her sweet mouth. 

Bold, wanting, he pushed her against a tree and felt the length of her under his hands. She responded in kind, losing her hands against the skin of his back. But then he reached around and grasped her hands, putting both into one of his as he held her against the tree and kissed her. 

She felt resounding joy in the touch of him. In knowing him. Their argument forgotten, lost on the wind with the advent of his apology, she lost herself in the feel of him. 

But then it stopped. His mouth was no longer on hers and her hands were empty and dropped from his. 

“Who - the _fuck_ \- are you?”

Penelope opened her eyes to find Simon held at spearpoint, sprawled onto the grass of the forest, eyes trained on the man above him. 

“S-s-simon,” he said, glancing quickly at Penelope. 

She yelled, fury coursing through her. Though they were Thrakean, though she was the smallest of her siblings by far, though the sessions were few and far between, she knew how to disarm her uncle as he held Simon at spearpoint. She’d been Spartan trained, it turned out.

First, she cocked out her leg, knowing he would twist his calf towards her and likely trip. Then, she aimed for his neck, a jab meeting his throat and causing him to cough. As he attempted to recover, she twisted the spear from him and he tumbled over her outstretched foot, a spear at his chin by the time she was finished. He should have seen her coming. He taught her that. 

“Why?” she said, Alekto on a battlefield. 

“Why?” Alexios muttered, batting the spear away. “He was holding you against your will!”

Penelope, against her better judgement, laughed. It rang through the trees, matching the birds trilling. 

“You, of all people, uncle, should know that that’s simply not possible.” 

She let the spear go and turned to Simon to help him up. He wiped himself down of dried grass, but didn’t have the look of fury on his face that she knew would inflame her uncle. Instead, he just looked confused, eyes trailing her up and down and asking the silent question of whether she was okay. She nodded lightly to him. 

“Uncle, this is Simon. Simon, this is my uncle Alexios, my mother’s brother.”

Simon didn’t hesitate to put out his arm; Alexios hesitated to take it. 

When he did, he grasped and dug his fingers into the flesh. “Go home, boy, and hope that Penelope’s father doesn’t come calling.”

Simon blanched, eyes finding her apologetically as he turned to make his way back to the chora. 

Penelope lost her temper, famous throughout Thrake. 

“What the fuck, Alexios!” she screamed, gesturing to his face and almost hitting him. “Why did you do that!”

“Why did I do that? He was touching you! You’re sixteen!” 

“You’re not my father!”

“No, but he would do the same if he were here!”

“He wouldn’t have! He respects my choices!”

“Enough! You’re coming home, now!”

“Oh, is that how they discipline in Sparta, is it! Take the stupid girl home, wait for her father to come, then-.”

“What did you say?” he replied quietly, deadly. 

“I said…” she yelled. “Is that what you used to do in Sparta! Encroach on liber-.”

He’d stepped towards her violently, then covered her mouth with his open hand, silencing her. 

“Speak quietly, Penelope,” he murmured. “And tell me what you mean.”

She ripped her face away from his hand, hating the feel of it. “I mean,” she whispered fiercely. “That we’re Spartan, not Thrakean, and was it the way of Sparta to deny a girl her choice?”

He brought his face close to hers, and that’s when she saw what she’d been ignoring. It wasn’t anger that brought him to silence her and demand her. 

It was fear. Her uncle was terrified. 

“What do you mean, we’re Spartan?” he whispered, so low that she barely caught it. 

“I found a letter from the old King addressed to mater. You told us that your father’s name was Archidas, but that isn’t true, is it? Your father is the Wolf of Sparta.”

He let her go then, going limp from the shock of it. How could she possibly… 

“Yes,” he said, voice a deep rumble. “My father is Nikolaos of Sparta. Satisfied?”

“Why the lies?”

“Because the King claimed your brother before he was born. Because we had to save him.”

“The song,” she said suddenly. “Amphipolis. Pater is Brasidas of Amphipolis, isn’t he?”

“It was the only way to keep you all safe. They would have executed your mother and father if they’d returned to Sparta, claiming Alexander as the heir to the Agiad.”

“What about what we wanted? Maybe Spartan tradition would be easier than Thrakean poverty?”

He shook his head. “Ask your mother when she returns. She will explain it better than I ever could.” He darted his eyes around the clearing, shoulders slumped. Penelope was still breathing hard, still furious. 

“Was it really so bad?” she said. “To have opportunity, means, without having to grind your own fingers to the bone?”

“Do we do that here, do we?” he whipped back. “Are you forced to work until you perish under Helios’?”

She shook her head in disbelief. 

“I didn’t think so. No. You’re protected by your parents, even as they endanger themselves in the north, just so you’re not required to live a helot life.”

“But I should have the choice!”

“You’re just a child, Penelope. How would you know what the choice was?”

“I am not!”

Alexios’ mouth opened slightly to retort. Kindness had made these children unappreciative of their safety. 

Sixteen. He didn’t remember the age of sixteen at all. All he saw was blood, bone, and the frowning terror that lit the faces of the helots he’d killed. But here was his protection of his niece and nephews laid bare: they had no idea, had no possible frame of reference, for what they’d escaped. 

Alexander knew a little; knew why his uncle only took certain jobs and how he reacted when he was forced to slice into a throat. It brought back Messenia, brought back the blood. Alexander had also met Lysander, when they’d met for a meal. He didn’t know him as Lysander, didn’t know who he was, but they’d spoken and even gotten along. A foreign part of Alexios unwillingly shared into this bubble of a safe life. 

But sparing these kids their past and the horror of it perhaps was a disservice. Still, it wasn’t his tale to tell. 

“Get home, Penelope, or I swear that you’ll never see that boy again.”

Tears welled in Penelope’s eyes, fury spilling out. She hated that she cried when she was angry. She hated that everyone took it to mean they’d affected her and could triumph in her cries. 

She walked away from her uncle, stomping through the forest, and leaving him alone once more. 

\--------

She didn’t go home. She trudged through the forest, seething, until she heard the unmistakable sound of her brothers’ laughter. 

She ran then, towards the noise and towards their solidity. 

She found Theo first, lounging with a wax tablet in his hands and a tree at his back. He’d barely been able to look up before Penelope barrelled into him, knocking his stylus to the forest floor and earning a yelp.

“Pen, what’s wrong?” he said, growing taller than her everyday. 

She sniffed a little, wiping away her tears. “I’m just so _sick_ of men telling me what to do,” she cried, putting her arms around his middle. 

His hands found the back of her head, rubbing gently. 

“What’s happened?” Archelaos said, stomping through the clearing towards them. She felt Theo shrug at him.

He let her go and she turned to Archy. Her mouth opened to explain, to shoot the argument with their uncle through their consciousness and be free from the secrets their parents held. She wanted them to feel as outraged as she did. As betrayed and forlorn and unwitting. 

But she hesitated. A flash of her uncle’s fear tore through her mind. He was the Eagle Bearer, a misthios who she’d never seen scared. But he’d been terrified. 

So she shook her head instead, unwilling to voice it. 

“Let us help you, Penny, please,” Archelaos said, touching her shoulder lightly. His honeyed eyes bore into hers, searching her every pore for the answer, but she shook her head again. 

He sighed, eyebrows furrowed into a strong line of his resignation. Then he took her hand and led her through the forest towards their home, leaving Theo to watch the traps and Xander walking into the clearing. 

“What’s up with them?” Alexander asked Theo, his thumb pointing to their retreating figures. 

“Someone was mean to Penny, but she won’t tell us who it was.”

Alexander furrowed his brow in the same way Archelaos had, the deepening groove the only sign of his frown. Theo just shrugged again.

“I know she was going to meet up with Simon,” Theo said, stashing his wax tablet into his rucksack, his sums interrupted anyway. 

“Who’s Simon?” Xander replied. 

“One of Archy’s friends. You’d know him if you saw him: he turns bright red in the sun. Maybe he upset her.” Theo’s mouth turned down, remembering exactly what his sister had said. “And she said that she was sick of men telling her what to do, too. Maybe Simon did something.”

“What do you mean?” Xander said carefully as his insides went into tumult. 

If someone had…

If anyone had lain a hand on her…

Their father was away, he’d have to…

He shook his head, unruly anger making its way out of his gut. 

“I mean that maybe Simon told her what to do, and she felt the need to run from him.”

“Then we find the fiend,” Xander said, lightly touching the blade that always sat at his hip. 

They left the forest, trailing after Archelaos and Penelope, and formed a plan of how they’d first find and then instil the fear of Ares into the son of the Archon. 

\--------

“Are you sure?” Archelaos said, three heads sitting close together after the light of the day had faded. Penelope and Alexios were in bed, leaving the brothers to their planning. 

“Yes, that’s what she said,” Theo explained. “Who else would have told her what to do and caused her to be so upset?”

Archelaos shook his head. He knew Simon. He didn’t know that Penny was secretly meeting with him, and he didn’t like it, but he just didn’t seem the type to do anything she didn’t want. 

“Come on, Archy, we can just go and have a chat with him,” Xander said, eyes bright. 

“I don’t know,” Archelaos hesitated. “I just don’t think she’d let anyone do anything without her permission. And he’s the Archon’s son. You’ll be drawing attention to us while mater and pater are away.”

Alexander thinned his mouth as confusion mounted over Theo’s. 

“I don’t think it’ll get to that,” Xander said. “I just want to talk to him.”

“And if it escalates? You know that there are emissaries in Thrake. Say the Archon calls on his potential allies to sort out a problem for him.”

“What are you talking about?” Theo interjected, interrupting the intense gaze that Archelaos had levelled on his older brother. 

“It won’t get to that,” Xander confirmed, determined. 

Archelaos didn’t quite believe him. 

“Tonight,” Xander continued. “So today is still fresh in his mind.”

Theo nodded, Archelaos didn’t like it still. Simon was an intellectual. He liked numbers and reading and the philosophy of Athens. Not only that, but he was a happy guy. He smiled easily and Archy had never seen him brought to temper, ever, and he’d known him his whole life. 

It nagged him, but Theo had been clear. She’d said that she was sick of men telling her what to do. And there was simply no one else that qualified. 

“Okay,” Archy said finally. “He lives at the base of the northern hill. I know which window is his, too.”

They stole away from their farm, Xander with his weapons and Archelaos with a wooden baton, towards the large house and its low wall. Archelaos pointed to Simon’s window, the curtains closed with the gentle breeze disturbing the woven pattern. Xander made to pull out his kopis, but Archelaos restricted his hand by his wrist, shaking his head. 

“You said talk?” he asked, a violent whisper. “You know what’s at stake.”

“Maybe this is more important than whatever fears our parents have.”

Archelaos couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

“You’ve been to Makedonia, Alexander. You’ve seen the alternative.”

“He’s dead, Archy. There’s nothing that would tie us to that place.”

“There are people who remember.” Archelaos shook his head violently. “This is not the place for this talk.” He removed his hand from his brother’s, unwilling to descend with him into his temper. In the time it took for Archy to look back to the house, and then look at his brothers, he made a decision. 

“I’m going in alone. Don’t follow unless I call.” He left them behind, vaulting over the stone wall and silently making his way to the open window. He half expected his two brothers to follow him and continue the argument, but they stayed where they were. 

“Simon?” Archelaos whispered to the drapes. 

There was no answer. The curtains continued to flutter in the breeze, pushed by the northern winds. 

Archy pushed himself through the hole, landing on the balls of his feet into the darkened room. It was empty, Simon wasn’t here. His brow creased, sure that this was the right room. It was well past dark, and his friend should have been here. 

But then he heard it: laughter, pounding, the sound of a dinner party. 

Then footsteps, lumbering towards him. He didn’t have time to turn, didn’t have time to make himself scarce before the steps were upon him. 

The door opened, flooding the room with the light of the braziers from the hallway. Silhouetted against the brightness was Simon, holding the door open and gazing with wide eyes at Archelaos. Archy grinned despite himself, framing the view of him how Simon must see him. Ridiculous.

“Archelaos?” Simon croaked. “What are you doing here?”

“Simon?” a voice called from outside the room, and Simon quickly closed his door, plunging them back into darkness. 

“What do you want?” Simon asked, holding the door closed. 

“My sister came to me crying today,” Archelaos whispered, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “I’d like to know why.”

He let a little bit of menace enter his voice at the end, a low growl that reverberated through his voice.

“Penelope?” Simon said dumbly, nerves wracking his body. 

“I don’t have any other sisters,” Archelaos confirmed, spreading his hands wide. 

“She was crying?” Simon asked, concern ringing through his voice.

That confirmed it enough to Archelaos. He shrugged, nodding. “She said that she was sick of boys telling her what to do.”

“Oh, well…”

“What?”

“Your uncle found us. Maybe she didn’t appreciate-.”

“Simon?” a rough voice called as the door opened behind him, letting in the light. 

“Cousin,” Simon said, turning. 

The light had fallen directly onto Archelaos as he remained crouching on the balls of his feet. He felt like a doe caught in the sights of an expert archer, unable to move.

The man standing in the doorway was older, grey hair leaching through his features and framing his face. He was tall, not quite as tall as his uncle, but imposing as he filled in the space of the doorway. But his eyes were piercing, shocked, disbelieving. 

“Alexios?” he said, breathless. 

Archelaos just shook his head, confusion marring his features. 

“You’re dead…” the man continued. “You died.”

“My name is not Alexios,” Archy said carefully. 

The man shook his head, seemingly to try and clear it. 

“No, of course not,” he whispered, still studying his face. He was sure that this was the dead heir, twenty years gone. 

“What’s your name?” Archy probed. 

“You even sound like him,” he continued. 

Simon relented, looking between the men. “This is my cousin Leon. Leon, this is Archelaos Brasidas.”

“Brasidas?” Leon said, startled. His mouth opened and shut multiple times before he settled on the truth of what sat in front of him. Then he shot out his hand, pointing directly at the seventeen year old’s face. “Who is your mother, boy?”

Archelaos didn’t answer him, knowing better. 

He knew that Simon might have just doomed his whole family. 

“Simon,” he asked, turning to his friend. “Is this man important to you?”

“What?” Simon said.

“Is this Leon an important person to you?”

Leon interrupted, his spittle spraying across the room. “You’re Kassandra Nikida’s son, yes? Your uncle is Alexios Nikidas, heir to the Agiad, the rightful King. Brasidas Tellidas is your father and they faked their deaths.”

Archelaos just sat calmly, nothing the man said being news to him. He knew, of course. He’d demanded answers when he was fourteen, needing to know why his brother was able to travel south with their uncle while he was relegated in the north. The answer was simple: he just looked too much like his uncle. Framed with the kidnapping attempt as well… 

He didn’t know who Leon was. He didn’t know how influential he was in Sparta. 

But he did know that the only way Leon was leaving their chora was in an urn designed for ashes. 

So Archelaos stood to his full height, lean and gangly in the way only teenagers can be. 

“I’m sorry, Simon,” he whispered. Then he reached for the wooden baton sitting at his waist and hit his friend over the head, knocking him to the floor and into unconsciousness. 

By the time Archelaos had knocked Leon unconscious too, Alexander and Theo were climbing through the window, emboldened by the sound of struggle. Theo looked between the two of them, his questions almost bursting from him. 

“Not here, Theo,” Xander said, looking over Leon. 

“But...!”

“No, at home.” Xander turned to Archelaos. “What’s your plan, here?”

“We have to kill him. He’ll take the tale back to Sparta.”

Xander nodded, acknowledging the task. “And Simon?”

“What?” Archelaos almost yelped, silencing the sound with his fist. “We can’t kill Simon! Penny would never forgive us!”

“But he heard all of it. It’s dangerous.”

“But he mightn’t talk. He isn’t like that.”

Xander shook his head, but for once in their lives, Archelaos refused to defer to him. 

“We aren’t killing him, Alexander.”

“Then think of something else.”

“He might love her, I don’t know,” Archy said. “Maybe that would be enough?”

He looked down at Simon, an ugly lump already forming on his head. 

“Let’s take him home. When he wakes up, we can explain everything, and if he agrees to stay silent, we won’t kill him.”

“Explain it to me too, please,” Theo said, angry. 

Xander just nodded, and Archelaos and Theo picked up Simon and walked him back to their house, silently passing Penny’s bedroom and dropping him onto Archy’s bed. 

Xander joined them a little time later, and Archelaos didn’t probe into how he’d dispatched Leon. But the forest was large and unfrequented. 

“Explain, please,” Theo whispered.

Alexander sighed. “Well, firstly, Penny doesn’t know either.”

Theo just waited. 

“When we were younger, I was maybe seven or eight, a man came to the chora to buy some of pater’s carvings. Both me and Archy were with pater that day, helping him run the stall. You were only just born. Well the man asked pater a lot of questions, none of which related to carving, and it spooked pater for some reason. He’d already told Archy to hide under the table when the man approached.”

Archelaos didn’t remember much of that day, just the red cloak and the golden cuirass. 

But he remembered the night after, when he’d been taken from his bed and spirited into the dark. 

“The man kidnapped Archelaos. Uncle and pater eventually found him heading south with a group of Spartan soldiers. Turns out they’d thought that Archy was uncle’s son, and had taken him south to present him to the Spartan King.”

A small breath left Theo’s throat. He had never heard this before. He had no idea. 

“Why?” was his first and only question. 

“Because mater and uncle are Agiad,” Archelaos explained.”One of the Spartan royal houses. They escaped Sparta because they were going to be executed and Alexander made the heir.”

Theo stayed very still, processing. Then a thought struck him, resulting in a wry grin across his face. 

“Penny definitely knows,” he declared. 

“How could she? She was barely three”

“No, she knows. She’s smarter than the rest of us put together. She definitely knows.”

Xander shrugged. “Well in that case…”

He looked down at Simon’s prone form, thinking. 

“Is the old King…?” Theo asked.

“He’s dead. Sparta only has one King, now.”

“Then what’s the real danger of Simon knowing?”

“Because they could recall us. They could cause us to be…”

“You’d be King, Xander.”

“Yeh, well, lucky I don’t want to be King, then.”

Theo fell silent, all three of them looking down at Simon. 

“Okay, we won’t kill him,” Xander finally said.

As if hearing him, Simon groaned and opened his eyes. His gaze was unfocused and his hand immediately went to the lump on his forehead, touching the bruise. 

“Sorry about that,” Archelaos said, helping him sit. 

“What…? Who…? Where?”

“You’re at our house, we decided it would be better if you woke up here,” Xander explained. 

“Is Pen okay?” Simon said immediately, other concerns falling away. 

Archelaos cocked his eyebrow at Xander, wordlessly saying that _he’d told him so._

“Yes, she’s fine. But your cousin is a little worse for wear, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, Leon?” Simon offered, head in his hands. 

He stilled, his breath caught in his throat as the previous hour came back to him. His eyes searched first Archelaos’ face, then turned to Alexander and Theo in turn, eyes suddenly clear and sure. 

“Yes, you heard some things, Simon,” Alexander continued. “Things that can’t leave this room.”

“You’re…! And he’s…!” he said, pointing between the brothers. 

“Yes, but it’s really important that it _stays_ a secret, Simon.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Simon said, voice rising to an unacceptable level. “Sparta is without a second King! There’s been a slave revolt, and they’re-!”

“Who was Leon?” Theo asked, cutting off his rambling. 

Simon squinted his eyes. “Leon is my cousin, a Spartiate.”

“Was,” Alexander corrected. “I had to dispatch him, Simon.”

Simon’s eyes relaxed somewhat. “Oh, good, because he would have taken that information straight back to Sparta and put you in chains to get there.”

Archelaos cocked another eyebrow at his brother, another offered _told you so_ , but Alexander ignored him. 

“Will he be missed?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Simon confirmed. “But he was a bit of a prick, so maybe not.”

“Wait, wait, hang on,” Theo said, putting up his hands. “Why are mater and pater in the north?”

Alexander grinned. “To sabotage the Spartans, to prevent them becoming allies with Thrake. They try every winter, and pater and mater sabotage them every winter. It’s sending their emissaries mad. They just can’t figure out why they can’t break through what they see as Thrakean stubbornness.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Simon said quietly, shaking his head. “If they found you, they might take Penny as well, and I don’t think I could stand that at all.”

“And if she breaks your heart?” Archelaos asked, peering into his pale eyes. 

“She’s not you, Archelaos. She isn’t callous with people.”

He supposed he deserved that. 

“I won’t risk her, I swear it,” he said. “And without my cousin taking the tale back to Sparta, you have nothing to fear.”

Archy wished that were true. There had already been a few close calls, a few instances where Alexios had been forced to follow a man who knew too much south. He knew that eventually it would catch up with them. He wished he could ease the burden, keep them safe. He’d had that exact discussion with his father once, when he’d stridently and strongly emphasised how important it was that he’d protect his family. 

Archelaos shook his head. 

“Thank you, Simon.”

He stood up and walked away from them, into the next room where his sister was sleeping. Gently, calmly, he shook her awake. 

“Penny, Simon is here.”

She woke groggy, sleep slow to move from her. “Archy…?”

“Simon, Penny. He’s, ahhh, taken a fall.”

She sat up in her bed quickly, sitting stock straight. “What?”

“He ahh, well…”

She didn’t wait for his answer, instead walking, determined, into the boys’ bedroom and finding him on Archy’s bedroll. 

With a great big dirty bruise on his head and a gleam in his eye. 

She felt the lick of fury course through her and rounded on her brothers. 

“Which of you did this?” she said, quiet and deadly. 

Alexander and Archelaos exchanged a glance, but Theo looked at Archelaos, giving Penny all of the information she needed.

She hit him on the shoulder, hard, pushing him to the floor. Then she pushed her fist across his face, causing a stream of blood from his nose. 

A hand restrained her arm before she could land another punch, pulling her back and forcing her to lose her feet. 

Her father stood above her, his eyes steady and his face marred with the need of sleep. 

“Pater,” she whispered, turning and hugging him tight around his waist, gulping in his smell. “You’re home.”

“Penelope,” he murmured back, clutching her to him. He pushed her back, studying her face and rubbing circles in her skin. She was older, yes. Maybe wiser. 

His eyes moved to the rest of his children, first Theo, grown taller, then Archelaos, bleeding but still strong, then Alexander, a new scar under his eye. They were all smiling at him, joyous grins. But then his eyes landed on Simon, the boy he knew from only in passing. One of Archy’s friends, if he wasn’t mistaken. 

There were too many bruised boys in this room. 

“Penny,” Brasidas said, weary. “Why were you hitting your brother?”

Her face darkened immediately. She knew her father would be on her side. She knew that he valued her choices, even if her brothers didn’t.

“Because-.” she began, ready to condemn them for presuming the need to protect her.

“It’s a long story, but one you have to hear,” Xander said, cutting her off. 

Brasidas threw his hands wide, open, welcoming any explanation. 

Archelaos sighed. “Penny came out of the forest this afternoon upset. We knew she’d been with Simon, and just presumed he was the one that had upset her.”

Simon stayed silent, knowing better than to interject, but Penelope’s mouth opened wide. She turned to Theo.

“Simon would _never_ tell me what to do!” she said. “It was uncle!”

Theo just shrugged. “Well you refused to tell us, so…”

“So, what? You all decided to beat him to a pulp!?” 

“Penny, please,” Brasidas said, hand gently caressing her shoulder. He gestured for his sons to continue, smelling where this was going. It was why he’d raced home so desperately: whispers of Spartiates throughout Thrake. 

“We went to his house,” Archelaos paused for a snort from his sister, then continued. “I went in alone, just to talk, and we were, and he assured me that he’d never do anything to Penny, which I accepted, but then his cousin interrupted us and recognised me.”

Brasidas turned to Simon, eyes expectant. 

“Leon, his name was Leon. He was a Spartiate.”

Brasidas narrowed his eyes, just as Penelope’s widened. He glanced at his older sons and saw their grave faces, and a slight nod from Alexander. He’d dealt with it, then, like he’d always promised he would. A protector, a spear standing between them and oblivion. He could trust his eldest son, always. 

But for the life of him, Brasidas couldn’t remember a Leon. Couldn’t think of who it might be. 

“Sparta?” Penny whispered. 

A loose end. Brasidas’ younger children didn’t know. Maybe it was time to change that. 

“We’re Spartan, Penny,” Theo offered instead. “You know that.”

“Yes,” was all she whispered, staring at her father. “Yes, I knew that.”

“And pater is Brasidas-,” Theo started.

“-of Amphipolis, yes,” Penny finished, still staring at him. 

He looked at her apologetically. 

They’d all agreed to keep it from the children. Their lives were different, removed from the red cloaks and the golden spears of their homeland. But they’d figured it out without him anyway. 

“What tipped this Leon off?” Brasidas asked.

“He called me Alexios, he recognised me. And then this one here,” he gestured at Simon, “ran his mouth and called me Archelaos Brasidas. He asked me who my mother was and called her Kassandra Nikida.”

Then it occured to Brasidas exactly who Leon was, and the realisation forced a laugh from him. 

“Leon!” he said, surprised. “Leon was one of your mother’s suitors! Oh, of course. He offered her pottery.”

His children didn’t share his joy, just looking at him like he was a madman. 

“Wait…” Penny said, pieces clicking together. “You knew!?” she yelled at her brothers. “You knew all along that we were Agiad and you never said anything!?”

“Yes,” Xander said, apology in his voice. “Ever since Archy was kidnapped when he was five to become the heir-.”

“EVER SINCE WHAT!?” she yelled, throwing her hands in the air. 

“Your brother looks just like your uncle, and you look just like your mother,” Brasidas explained. “No doubt if Leon had seen you, he would have figured it out too. But a Spartan mercenary found Archy, thought he was your uncle’s son, and tried to steal him back to Sparta to be the heir. It was tricky to get him back.” He pushed her hair back from her face, looking at her honeyed eyes. “How did you know, Penny?”

She gulped, the secret filling the cracks in her resolve. “I found a letter addressed to mater from the Spartan King.”

Brasidas just nodded, accepting her version. “And I suppose you read the letter from your grandpater as well, then?”

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“Then that’s one thing that will please your mother: one of her biggest regrets was her children not knowing about her father. He was a good man.”

“Where is mater?” Xander asked, sitting cross legged on the floor. 

Brasidas pushed his hair back from his face, his heart clenching. “I had to leave her in the north and race back. We only had one horse that was fast enough.”

“Why?” Archelaos said.

Brasidas huffed. “Because there are Spartans all through these hills. Because we have to watch more carefully, and I needed to warn you kids that you can’t go gallivanting through the forest until this is sorted.”

“Sorted, pater?” Archy said. 

His father thinned his lips. “Calmed down.”

“So it will never truly be sorted, then?”

“Lysander has managed to turn Sparta’s eyes eastward rather than north, to Persia rather than Thrake. He’s done good work. But we have to be careful until this war is finished and they return home.”

Archelaos didn’t believe him. But time would make life safer for them: all they needed was time. 

\--------

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t accept your apology.”

“Fine. Then tell me what I can do to make it up to you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, her mouth ready to retort, until she saw the pleading spread across his face. He was serious, and miserable at the thought that she might hold this against him. She sighed, letting her tense breath to the wind. 

“I’m not truly angry with you, Archy. I’m just… I’m just angry at everything else.”

He didn’t react, his gaze centred on her face, watching her. 

“I’m angry that you and Xander kept this from me. I’m angry that mater and pater and Alexios kept this from me. I’m angry that Simon was hurt. I’m angry that I can never marry him because his family has ties to Sparta.”

Tears had welled now, but she refused to acknowledge them. 

“But I’m angry at myself, too. I’m sorry that I wasn’t more open with you, telling you the truth. If I was, then none of this would have happened.”

“That’s not true,” Archelaos whispered, pulling a white flower from the ground and twirling it in his fingers. “It would have happened anyway, maybe just in a different order or with different people. I’m sorry about Simon, though. I know you liked him.”

She did like him. She still liked him, if she was honest. But he was gone, sent to live in Athens by his father, concerned as he was that his son was showing too much interest in a silly village girl. 

“He might come back, you never know,” she said, confidence in her voice that she didn’t feel. 

She stood, dusting off her chiton and putting out her hand to him. When he took it, she launched him up to his feet. Gently, sisterly, she pushed the flower petals he’d picked off his shoulders, lending him the kind of dignity he deserved. Then she took his hand, and ventured down the hill.

**Author's Note:**

> Real talk, I actually wrote the kidnapping story but it ended up really long and I didn't think anyone would read it so Alexander's words are the condensed version.
> 
> Like my work? Donate to the NSW/ACT Aboriginal Legal Service!  
> https://www.alsnswact.org.au/donate


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